Chances Are
by lexie2
Summary: Entry for September 09 NS Fanfiction Challenge #4- Who is your Daddy? Chloe/Chlex one-shot


**TITLE:** "Chances Are..."

**CHALLENGE:** September ´09- Challenge #4- Who´s Your Daddy?

**RATING:** PG

She looks at her baby girl struggle back to her bare feet after collapsing with a bump on her nappy-padded rear. With a stubbornness Chloe´s grown accustomed to the tiny tot doesn´t even whimper and, before the blonde can take pity on her, she´s standing again- her little arms wrapped around the leg of the reporter´s computer desk. Today she´s turning a year, but it seems it was only yesterday when Chloe bid farewell to the stifling and judgmental society of Metropolis. She hasn´t regretted moving to Gotham, although there are times when she wishes things were different, days when she misses having someone to talk to after burning the candle at both ends only to end up feeling as if she were alone fighting against the windmills.

She swivels her chair and stretches out her arms for Gabrielle to cruise into them on unsteady legs. Chloe feels a sudden clench in her gut when the baby looks at her and, for a fleeting second, she thinks she´s really losing her sanity like Moira before her. As soon as the thought creeps into the blonde´s mind, Gabrielle´s face breaks into a blinding smile and Chloe´s heart, which has skipped a beat, starts pumping again. She picks the girl up and clutches her to her bosom while treacherous tears well up in her eyes; Gabe should have been here to witness his granddaughter´s first steps. She knows she´s also depriving someone else of being part of this miracle, but she doesn´t want to dwell on it because doubt will only make her question her decision- the one that´s helped her survive her dad´s untimely death due to a heart attack- and she can´t afford that. She knows Gabrielle´s in her life due to a selfishly conscious decision that nobody, not even those closest to her, could understand.

Two months after burying Gabe in Smallville´s cemetery Lois came by Chloe´s bedsitter in Metropolis to find her asleep on the cold tiled floor of her bathroom; her head resting on the seat of the toilet bowl where she´d previously emptied her stomach for the third time that day. The blonde had always been a trooper and the General´s daughter knew her too well to buy the empty excuses she´d come up with to skip work for two days in a row; there was nothing on this Earth that could keep Moira´s offspring away from the bullpen she´d fought tooth and nail to get in. The imposing brunette had bullied the superintendent until fear of being deported back to his native Cuba convinced him to use his master key and let her in Chloe´s flat.

A quick shower and two cups of chamomile later Chloe was submitted to the third degree. It didn´t take long for the worldlier cousin to discover the reason behind the flimsy out-of-character excuses- morning sickness. "A severe case by the looks of it," Lois thought, observing the ghastly appearance of her usually radiant little cousin.

"Why didn´t you tell me, Chlo´?"

"Tell you what? That I had a twenty-four-hour bug that wiped me out?"

"Don´t patronise me, cuz. You have a bun in the oven. I wasn´t born yesterday, you know. Why didn´t you tell me you were seeing someone? "

"Because I wasn´t..... "

"Well, clearly that´s changed because the last time I checked babies don´t grow in trees. So... who´s the father?"

"It´s complicated."

"Complicated? You did get sex-education at Hickville High, right? Or... is it that you don´t know who...? No, you´d never do something like that. Tell me nobody forced you, Chlo´ , or I swear..."

"I knew what I was doing, Lo´."

"Then, why won´t you tell me?"

Although the blonde knew there was a slim chance either her cousin or Clark would understand, she needed to share it with someone and Lois was the only family she had left. The disbelieving look on the brunette´s face as Chloe´s confession poured out in a torrent is still imprinted on the blonde´s mind because it was what convinced her she´d grown into someone neither Lois nor Clark could understand. She still wonders if there´s someone out there who ever will.

Gabrielle starts chanting and giggling taking her mum out of her pensive mood. Chloe mirrors her luminous smile and feels a sudden pang once again when her eyes clash with her daughter´s, but her reveries are short-lived for the eerie bonding is broken by the ringing of the front door bell.

A sixth sense tells her the moment she´s been dreading has arrived, and as she looks through the peephole she realises she´s been a fool to believe her choice wouldn´t come with a price.

"Chloe," says a cultured voice she hasn´t heard in over two years.

"Lex," she responds with a hammering heart.

"We have to talk," he adds gravely, handing her some papers whose letterhead she recognises immediately.

She takes the papers with strangely firm hands and reads the words she´s been expecting to read for months now.

"How?" she whispers.

"My father," he responds in a voice so charged with emotion as his eyes caress the cherubic features of Gabrielle in her arms that Chloe´s taken back in time to hear a different Lex confess his hunger for his own father´s love.

_Damn Lionel Luthor. Manipulative till the very end. He managed to move us both like pawns on his chessboard_.

_`Be careful what you wish for´_ thinks Chloe, suppressing the urge to burst into hysterical laughter when she remembers what she wrote in that form at the fertility clinic.

For a minute Lex wishes he could hate Lionel for manipulating even the most sacred thing in a man´s life. Having Chloe- whom he once tried to murder- unscrupulously fertilised with the sperm sample obtained years ago when Lex wondered if his fertility had been affected by meteor radiation was twisted. And yet, now that Lex´s seen her and their child he knows this is one deal he doesn´t want to lose.

**THE END**


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